Durandal: Sic Vita Est
by Grand Phoenix
Summary: After the founding of the Inner Court, Mina struggles to come to terms with the responsibilities the position of High Guardian brings. [A prequel side-story to the upcoming "Until We Meet Again" rewrite]


**Notes1:** Proofread to correct any errors, and acknowledging the lore present in previous (and also retconned, see the notes for _In the Shadow of the Moon_ and _A Passing Glance_) stories. As with InSofM, I may go through this one more time to see if there is anything amiss, but otherwise this version will remain finalized.  
**Notes2:** Following the BioWare references in the UWMA rewrite, I was initially going to have the Holy Sword enchanted with lyrium, a mineral that is prevalent in _Dragon Age_. However, constant use of it would create an addiction, not to mention being exposed to it for so long has some very nasty side effects, which include paranoia and dementia. At this point of time Mina's reluctantly taking up her role as leader of the Sailor Guardians, so, to my knowledge, wielding a weapon imbued with lyrium for the duration of the Alliance-Negaforce War would affect her even more on top of the mental conflict she has going on.

* * *

She did not want this position nor did she ask for it. They both knew it, but she was the only person Queen Serenity could think of who fit the criteria. Were circumstances different, she said, she would have gladly pledged Sailor Galaxia as the leader of the Inner Court Guardians; but Galaxia hailed from Andromeda, and as the strongest Guardian of not only her homeworld but the entire sector she could not abandon her post.

Perusing the records of every woman in the Grand Solar Alliance that fought in the military, Serenity narrowed down her choices to four young women, all of them barely out of their teens but well-versed in the magical artes their planets excelled in. Not only that, but their clout was crucial, and now more than ever did she require their full cooperation to shore up defenses and press the advantage while the armies of the Negaforce were being waylaid on the Fringe. Mistakes could not be made.

_What makes her think I'm more than capable?_ She asked herself, the night after they had been touched by the Roseate Imperium Crystal. She leaned against the balcony, arms crossed over the railing, surveying the faraway diamond that was the Sea of Serenity on the horizon. Night reigned eternal, and some thousands of lightyears away suspended the blue-green pearl of Terra; if her mind was not awhirl and she looked more closely, she would be able to spot the cotton candy swirl of a tropical depression forming in one of its many seas, its names she would only fathom to guess.

_What makes her think I can protect Her Majesty's daughter? Her people?_ She lifted the keystone dangling from its chain around her neck, rolled it around between her fingers. At first glance it looked like a simple fountain pen, yellow and bronze to reflect the Venusian royal colors; even its cap was engraved with the planet's circle and cross. A regular person needed only to look at it once and dismiss it as an ordinary writing utensil and they would be none the wiser. Yet outward appearances were deceiving, for in reality the keystones were carved from the most precious minerals held valued and sacred on Mercury and Mars and Venus and Jupiter. Once the Queen's gem-cutters received the shipments and succeeded in their task of shaping the keystones did she bless them and their princesses—the ladies who willingly stepped off the throne and onto the battlefield—in the light of the Crystal. The light of the Old Gods, They who were terrible and beautiful in Their power and domain, as the legends foretold.

The body of the keystone was sculpted from a deep golden topaz, and on top of the cap was set a tiny green emerald. It was small and slender, no longer than the width of her fingers. Who would think it to be a font of magical energy so great she could fling spells like they were bullets from a gun, or cast a cloud of Venus's sulfuric fog as though the spirits themselves granted her permission to do so? "Just because most of it is sealed away doesn't mean you will be without it," the Queen had told her. "The Roseate Imperium Crystal has opened the circuits of the human body that allow the eternano, these magical particles that exist in all living organisms, to flow unhindered. The body, however, is still a finite source and can only handle so much strain of incantations and the instant casting of spells. A fight, as you know, cannot be won with just magic. Until you have raised your capacity to store this mana and learned to harness it without burden, it will be contained here inside this keystone.

"You must use it as duty dictates, or if you feel the Princess's life is in danger. The war pushes deeper into Alliance territory with each passing day, and soon the time will come when a fight can no longer be avoided."

She slowly rubbed it with the pads of her fingertips. It felt smooth and reflected the glow of the fluorescent bulbs off its polished surface, but to her it was as rough and worn as a chalkboard. It was so very, very uncomfortable.

"We can ill afford to waste this opportunity while the Guardians of the Outer Court wage battle against the darkness. You must prepare yourselves for the trial to come, for it will be here that our final stand shall take place. It is here our influence will stop Magistrix Beryl and her fel armies.

"It is here we will hold the line."

_And how does she expect me to do that? I only lead the Cohort that one time at Shepherd's Hill, and the blight damn near took everyone out. The captain and all the secondary officers died right away and everyone was panicking. Somebody had to get them back on their feet and focus on the mission, so who better to lead them than their princess?_

_But now…I'm not that princess anymore, no matter how much Queen Serenity reminds me._ She brushed over the engraving with a callused thumb. _I'm a soldier. A Guardian, representing the very best Venus has to offer._ She smiled grimly. _The best, huh? If I'm the best, I could've saved everyone afflicted with the blight. I could've saved all the beasts I loved and trained when I was still a footman. I could've stopped the White Tiger and arrested him; I could've even killed him, if I were a little faster, a little stronger._

_I could've done so much more, but I couldn't. I can't._ _Why did it have to be me?_ "She should've picked Raye instead. Her world _is _founded on fire and war, whereas love"—she chuckled humorlessly—"well, love, hugs, and kisses aren't going to convince the Negaforce to leave and go on their merry way."

"Mina," a voice calls. She lets go of the keystone and turns around. Artemis Shepard stands in the threshold of the doorway leading into the bedroom. He cuts a strong, stately figure in the patch of moonlight, his shadow cast in stark relief like a splash of ink. It reminds her of the statues of Adonis that throng the Temple of Desire. "I brought you your sword."

"Finished already, huh?" She shrugs her shoulders. "The smithies sure don't waste time, do they?"

"It has been reforged from adamant lunarite, mined and carted from the deepest regions of the Burrowers' Quarry. When it was done, Queen Serenity took it beneath Millennium Hold and there had it blessed in the light of the Roseate Imperium Crystal."

"Where is it?" How long ago had it been since she had last used it? She remembered the rolling, waving green hills of the Fertile Crest, the bloody swath of bodies strewn across the Hill, the flash of the White Tiger's blade as it clashed again and again against her steel. She heard the screams of the wounded and the dying rent the air, smelled the sulfurous ozone of dark magicks burning from blistered fingertips, tasted grit and smoke and cordite on her tongue.

Weeks. It'd been weeks since then. Almost a month? She wracked her brain and, to her astonishment and dismay, couldn't. Her gut clenched uncomfortably. _Time waits for no one,_ she thinks, and wonders how many hours the Queen's miners put in to deliver the ore from one point to another unscathed while the Negaforce stormed relentlessly through the countryside. How many hours the blacksmiths took out of their days to purify adamant lunarite, said to be toughest and most expensive mineral in all of Luna, and prepare it for forging when it could have gone to the factories to build power cells and modules and other intricate parts for guns, cannons, charge nodes for computer systems like the Eternity Main. _No time to waste like war time,_ and she felt terribly, terribly cold.

"It's inside," he said, and went to retrieve. He came back out, the blade in its scabbard, and presented it to her. She took it from him, tested its weight in her hands. Once upon a time she had been a princess and had hardly if ever lifted a sword. They were heavy and required years of training to acclimate to, years she had invested in her schooling and, as she got older, the frequent forays into the Crest when she hunted and gained splinters with each bow she used. She had never needed a sword and preferred to carry a hunting knife and dagger, for they made little noise while tracking and were easy to conceal, along with a beast for company and assistance.

She had never thought war would come home.

She had never imagined a lot of things.

She wrapped her hand around the grip, feeling the roughness of the shagreen beneath the cusp of her palm. Placing the other hand on the scabbard beneath the crossguard she pulled, and a gleam of metal caught her eye—pure and sharp and silver. She drew it forth, and there was a sound of steel scraping against leather as it left its confines and emerged effulgent, triumphant. In the furthest depths of her chest her breath caught, and it must have shown on her face when Artemis said, "Beautiful, isn't it? You'd never think it'd be used more for ceremony than war."

She raised it before her, gaze roaming slowly up and down. Yes, she thought, it was indeed very beautiful. In the ancient past adamant lunarite had been used to make the royal crown and the Spiral Heart Scepter, and Venusian legend told the Silver Imperium Crystal was made from it when Selene Herself gave it to the First King of Luna. Its power was derived from the heart both physically and mentally, and in the stories it was called upon to heal the most grievous of wounds, the deadliest maladies, and even restore a ruined world to its former beauty. But that power came with a cost—the lifeforce of a family member of the Lunar Kingdom. The greater the deed that was performed, the more it was required of the person to channel, and sometimes that cost was paid with his or her life.

Just like this sword. But, unlike the Crystal that knew only restoration, this sword knew only destruction. It knew only how to draw blood, how to dismember limbs, how to slice open the flesh and spill the baggage of guts within. There was nothing ceremonious about a sword, not unless one lived and died by it, whose body and soul were the sword and were but an empty shell without it.

"It doesn't even look like it did from before," she said, not unkindly.

Artemis nodded. "He must have thrown his entire weight into that swing. When the battle was over and you returned to your tent, you were holding just the hilt."

"I wasn't expecting to walk away alive that day. I didn't even expect Malachite to express an interest in fighting me. I was just a foot soldier."

"You're a princess fighting alongside the common folk and defied the machinations of the Negaforce. He wasn't going to allow someone like that to stand in his way. Metalia's strength is pure darkness; it knows nothing of mercy and moral boundaries."

"He'll get what's coming to him. Him and the other three _'Kings.'_ But it won't be from me."

"You must fight regardless. Maybe it's not bad now, but it'll get worse. Whether or not we have the entire Alliance stationed on Luna or spread across the sector, Beryl and the Kings and the rest of the Negaforce will come."

"I hope they never get that far." She lowered the sword and gazed over the horizon. The sky had a glassy, translucent sheen to it, like water that had not yet calmed, where the All-Defense System curved dome-like across the landscape. She watched for the telltale pricks of explosive magic and ballistae, and to the best of her ability and relief didn't see any. "Let the fighting stay on that side of the shield."

"Aye. But if it should fall, you will have to rise and perform as you must. The Princess's life is in the hands of the Guardians, but as their leader the responsibility is even greater. You must guide the Guardians—"

"But why me?" She asked. "I'm not that much older than them and we joined the Alliance around the same time, but just because I've fought more battles and have a higher kill count doesn't mean I have the experience to lead them or protect the Princess! We barely even know each other!"

"You didn't know the members of the Cohort when you first joined," said Artemis, "but in time you depended on one another to survive and complete your missions. It hasn't changed since then. They will listen and they will follow, and they will speak their minds if the situation demands it."

"It's not just that I'm worried about. It's…" She sighed and shook her head, sending waves of blonde hair flying. "The Queen said she chose me because I desire to protect the people I love and those weaker than me. In me I have the power to 'not destroy but recreate'…but everyone wants to rebuild after the war! And in order to rebuild, the enemy bearing down on us has to be destroyed! There's no negotiating with scum like Beryl, no comprising with traitors like the Four Kings! There's no way…a weapon like this…can ever bring peace!" She glared at the immaculate sword.

Artemis pursed his lips, crossed his arms across his chest. "I wish there was another way to resolve this, but there isn't. Sometimes, Mina, words cannot suffice. When it gets to that point, the only other option to take is to strike back. By doing so we will be sending them the message that we won't kowtow to them, that we won't allow them one step further into our homes and do us harm. The Solar System has been our home since the Primordial Age and we'll be damned to have that ripped away from us."

"People will still die, whether they're fighting or running for their lives. We can't save everyone." She sucked in a breath and expelled it through her nostrils. "Not even magic, for all the good it does."

"Casualties are bound to occur. It's an awful thing to say, but you can't let those kinds of thoughts deter you. The slightest degree of hesitance could be fatal not just to you, but to everyone around you—Guardians, civilians, and soldiers. Even the Princess."

"What if I can't?" she said, swallowing against a throat too dry and too tight. "Say Millennium Hold comes under siege and we try to evacuate. What if I get separated from her or, or I can't stop the enemy from getting through? Hell, I don't even have to make a mistake; I could be walking down the hall or sit in the same room and something might happen. She could die from ingesting poison from hors d'oeuvres, get her throat slit from an assassin hiding in the shadows, or take a shot from a sniper. I don't have to have my back turned to see her die!"

"The Guardians operate together, not alone, and even if the All-Defense System were overcome it would take more than all the soldiers in the Negaforce to force their way into the Hold."

"Still—"

"The Queen would not have selected you if she didn't think you worthy of the power or the position," said Artemis. He clapped a large, gloved hand on her shoulder and squeezed. "Mina, you can't run away from this. No one can. This is war, a war none of us wants, but war means death and death is a part of life. This is not something we can control."

"Life's not fair," she said, and gently removed herself from his grip. Tilting her head heavenward, where the stars were bright and cruel and their fates did not change.

"No," he agreed. "No it isn't. Far from it. But don't forget that I'm here for you, Mina. If there's anything you need help with, I or Miss Hawke will do what we can to provide it."

She looked away, unable to bear the glare of the night sky, the transient barrier, the sheen of the Sea of Serenity like an unreachable dream. "Will it be enough?"

"I don't know, but we have to try. The fate of the Alliance and the Selenos Dynasty depends on it. We will endure for as long as we can, just like your sword."

"My sword?" Still in her hand, she brought it up to bear again.

Artemis nodded. "That's right. Even if we are beaten down we'll get right back up and become stronger than before." He adjusted the way she held it and indicated a line of symbols etched along the inside of the fuller. "See this? It's an inscription in the Old Lunarian runic alphabet. Although no one writes in it anymore, the Selenos family continues the practice of learning and passing on its knowledge to their children and all who serve them."

"What does it say?"

"These here mean 'the sky that shatters darkness', and below that is 'Durandal', which is an Old Lunarian word for 'to endure'," His eyes softened. "It is a name the Queen gave it. She thought you might receive some measure of comfort seeing it."

"To endure, huh." She sighed and sheathed the blade in its scabbard. "I suppose it fits. This thing's been around since…geez, since my ancestors established the Divine Rights. 'The Holy Sword of Freyja', it's called—the blade of the Valkyrie who smites the wicked and delivers the spirits of slain soldiers to the Grand Halls of Paradise. Although, given the situation we're in, it's also very ironic."

"Of course," said Artemis. "The Negaforce have no place here, not on earth nor in heaven. We'll give them what for."

"So we will." Mina clutched Durandal to her breast, knuckles blazing white beneath the skin. "I just hope I know what I'm doing."


End file.
